


The green paradise of childhood loves

by Eiriin



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Angst, Anxiety, Kinda Kid Fic, M/M, Magic, Meds, Psychiatric Wards, Short Chapters, Slow Updates, Voodoo, a bit of narry, first serious attempt in english, larry stylinson - Freeform, panic attacs, something definitely weird, suicide attempts mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8109883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiriin/pseuds/Eiriin
Summary: Where Louis does not exist but Harry speaks to him every day. He can touch him and he can see him as well. Everyone thinks he's crazy but Harry knows he's not.





	1. When we were young

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a lot since the last time I posted something in here and in English, so please be gentle! If you find any mistakes please let me know so I can check them and write the correct version as soon as possible.   
> Thanks for your time!
> 
> All the love,   
> S. 
> 
> Ps: I wish I have a betareader for these kind of experiments ;-;

« _Gotcha_!» Harry laughs, his voice loud and delicate. He smiles whilst looking at the kid he just enveloped between his arms and then he pulls the tongue out, holding it between his teeth.

«To’d ya» he says. «’M good!»

He’s _great_ actually, but Louis will never admit it. He let the little boy rock both of them whilst he looked into his big, huge, green eyes, then he tries to free himself. They can’t stay like that any longer even if they both like that feeling they don’t quite understand yet due to their young age.

«Come on, HazzaBoo» Louis says, voice feminine and a bit louder than Harry’s one. «Ya gotta go hom’!»

And it’s true; Harry didn’t notice his mom calling him nor the people in the park walking past them staring at him: a cute kid all curls and dimples who is hugging nothing at all. They whisper things, mean and pitiful things; they feel sorry for his mom, they feel poor for the loneliness that, they think, led the child to consider a bunch of air as his best friend.

" _What a shame! Poor Anne, her son is completely crazy!_ " They're saying. " _He's young, isn't he?_ _How old_ _? Four? God, what a shame I say! If I were her, I'd rather kill myself than going to the park with a kid like that one._ "

Louis can hear them perfectly and he's not sure about Harry; he says nothing, though. It’s not his job. Also, he understands why people talk like that when they see mother and son trying to act normal. He perfectly gets why Anne struggles with Desmond and her marriage and the job she’s desperately looking for and that she desperately needs. He gets why she can’t find anything at all.

It’s not because of Harry. It’s because of _him_.

It’s him, _Louis_ , making them living a hell of a life and he knows he should leave, he knows he’d better be gone the minute Harry turns around to run to his mom who’s calling him, but he just can’t.

«Let’ go both: HazzaBoo and BooBoo.»

The curly-haired kid is so cute and Louis is tempted to go with him to make sure he won’t end up falling face to the ground or hit by some older child who wants to show how weak they are. But he can’t. So he gives Harry an apologetic look and then points at a random woman he doesn't even know.

«Mom’s waiting too. Gonna go hom’ together another day, pinky promise.»

 

That promise said in some weird English accent is the last thing Harry remembers about that day, the last time he saw and talked to Louis.


	2. Believe it or not

«Jesus fucking Christ! How do I have to tell you that _it wasn’t_ my mind fucking with me?! He was _there_! He was _real_!»

«Calm down, Harry.»

«I am _not_ going to calm the fuck down, nor stay here and accept you telling me I am some sort of crazy guy, okay?! I will not calm the fuck down because you _have_ _to_ believe me!» he cries. The minute Harry finishes the sentence, he lets himself sink on the sofa, face in his hands and he shakes his head.

The therapist waits a few seconds more and then he speaks. His voice calm and quiet, like a murmur, a lullaby. He’s trying to be comforting and that’s driving Harry insane.

«Harry, if Louis was real, as you keep saying, how comes that he hasn’t followed you around for the past eighteen years? You were taking pills and everything, the therapy was okay and you were doing really good, right? He wasn’t there, not anymore. Then you stopped for _no-one-knows-why_ and now Louis is back. You don’t really see what am I trying to point out, what is really going on here, do you?»

Harry does not answer. Why every time he mentions Louis everyone thinks he’s crazy or that the medications he takes are not sorting any effect?

«I showed you a picture of us both, together, once. Do you remember?»

The therapist nods slowly, curious about the reasons behind that comment.

«Then you saw him, didn’t you? He was smiling, we were holding a ball and he had his arm around my shoulders. Blue eyes – the _bluest_ I’ve ever seen – and thin lips, really cute lips. You saw him, he can’t be an illusion.» Harry is sure, the therapist can’t deny what he saw and said was a lovely picture, but the silence that comes from the man behind the desk is not encouraging. Now Harry’s afraid the therapist has been acting for his own sake; he said lies over lies just to see which point his mind would have reached. What it would have given birth to. He was just keeping up a play where he was the main character even though he didn’t even know where to start from with acting his part.

«Tell me again, Harry. Tell me once again what happened this morning.»

Harry sighs; that’s the third time in an hour and a half, they’re almost done, but what happened that morning doesn’t have any sense yet. He groans instead of screaming as loud as he would like to do all the nasty things his mind can think about. He sighs again, as if all the air he had in his lungs was too much, and he starts again.

He tells him he was walking down the hallway, listening to Niall while he was talking about something having to do with a girl he was hanging out with; he wasn’t really paying attention, his gaze was running around the room, picturing lives of people he’d never even said _hi_ to and then he saw _him_.

He saw _Louis_ , standing next to his locker and waiting for someone – probably Harry _himself_. They came close to it and Harry realized he was shaking so bad it took him four attempts to open the door. All the books fell down, of course, and while Niall was staring at him confused and amused, Louis was laughing so hard Harry was surprised no one noticed.

«What were you really thinking about, Harry? I mean, when you saw him. What were your thoughts about?»

Harry does not remember; he was just playing by himself the game he used to play with Gemma when they were younger.

“ _Guess which life is that man over there living_ ” she’d say. And then, together, they’d try to picture how people’s existence would have been like: how many kids, pets? Weird habits. Sex? How many relationships? Job. Interests. It was definitely better that playing _The Sims_ and they both laughed so hard every time. They used to play with Louis too, when Gemma used to see him and talk to him. Then she stopped, she started to treat her brother differently and things inevitably changed. The Louis-Game was not funny anymore.

«I—I wasn’t actually thinking. Niall was blethering, talking about crap soppy stuff I don’t really care about so I—»

The doctor opens a drawer, he pulls out a note pad, a new one, and Harry shivers. That means new meds. Probably stronger than the ones he was currently on.

«So I stopped thinking or following his speech. It was just me, walking to my locker before heading to class and staring at the people around me and my friend» he finishes.

«Then we can state your mind was absent, correct?»

The man starts typing something on the keyboard and Harry feels a wave of nausea jumping into his mouth; he deserves him throwing up on that horrible carpet, but it looks expansive and Harry’s mother has other things to deal with than a ruined piece of fabric to refund, for instance her crazy son who’s going to win a new set of pills. Harry swallows and then he turns his head, not willing to face the man.

«My mind _was_ there. I can remember every single thing happened to or done by every single student I saw in that fucking hallway» he murmurs, angrily. «So if I say that _Louis was there_ , that he laughed and that he knelt down to help me collecting my books, it’s because _it’s true_. I saw him, I touched him and he talked to me.»

The therapist looks at Harry straight in the eyes, not even impressed by that shaky voice full of rage and sadness. He was sure: Harry used to have an invisible friend as any other kid his age, but then he didn’t manage to have real relationships with real people except his mother and sister, so Louis grew up with him as a weird kind of permanent presence in the future he’s always been afraid to face. A mental image, a mental portrait he built to control his anxiety.

«What did he say?»

Harry doesn’t answer, again. He doesn’t remember a single word. His mind just processed that Louis’ voice was even louder, but still feminine as it was when they were children.

The doctor sighs heavily and then he gives Harry a bunch of papers.

«New pills, Haz. I want you to take them in the morning, before you go to school and after a big breakfast. They will help you with that Louis thing you can’t figure out yet. Next time we’re going to work on let things go, okay? I need you to understand that invisible friends won’t help you through the real world and its challenges. But time’s up, so this is topic for our next meeting which is going to be in two weeks, okay? Let me also know about the medications; I want you to keep a journal, a different one than the first I gave you, in which I want you to write daily how you feel physically and emotionally; just random words and not deep and complicated thoughts – you have your own journal for that, haven’t you?»

Harry nods slowly; he stands up and grabs the paper before heading back to the waiting room where Robin, her mom’s new husband, is waiting for him. They don’t speak. Harry can’t face him right now and he understands; that’s why he pats his shoulder and then hugs him as he always do when Harry’s done with the therapy. It doesn’t last long but it’s encouraging.

Harry releases from the hug, feeling tears pricking behind his eyes, then he walks out of the office, straight to the car. Once at home, he just locks himself into his bedroom and slides down back against the door. Head in his hands and eyes shut.

«Harry?»

«Go away…» he murmurs.

«Harry, is it because of me? I— Listen, I’m—»

« _Go away_ , Louis! Leave me alone!» Now Harry’s screaming and Gemma runs to his door. She knocks, but no one answers. She tries to open the door, but it’s locked.  

«Haz?» she calls.

«Leave, _please_ » he begs. Harry doesn’t know who is he really talking to.

«I— Really, HazzaBoo…» Louis murmurs, eyes on the floor. «I am really sorry...»

When Harry opens his eyes again, when he feels like he can breathe normally, Louis is not there anymore and Gemma is playing with her phone outside the door. Everyone is worried but he has never felt that alone, before.

He just wishes someone could believe him.

He just wishes his family would've had a different child. Maybe a normal one.


End file.
